Monster Monday: Samara Morgan

Nothing is scarier to me than evil kids. I suppose it’s due to the fact that we think of children as innocent and cute, and don’t think that a child could be capable of being evil. If we look beneath the surface though, there could be something malicious lurking. Just look at the Rabbit of Caerbannog in Monty Python and the Holy Grail!! Bunnies are supposed to be cute and cuddly and innocent as well, but not this particular bunny- this particular bunny was a murderous monster. Children can be this way as well.

One of these not-so-innocent kids goes by the name of Samara Morgan, who appeared in The Ring and The Ring 2*. Many questions surround Samara such as: Was she born evil? Was she made this way by her parents? Is she possessed? Is she a demon? Some of the questions are explored, especially in the second movie, but we never get a complete explanation, and I feel that this makes Samara even scarier.

Now, Samara loves to drive people insane, and then kill them. She has some bizarre powers such as the ability to project nightmarish images into people minds and onto videotape. She states in the first movie that she likes to hurt people, she apologizes like the polite child she is, but she cannot stop the malevolent desire within herself. She not only likes to kill people, but also horses (so sad!!!). Both her birth mother, and her adoptive mother, realize her inherent evilness, and both try to kill her. Her birth mother is stopped, but her adoptive mother succeeds. Luckily for Samara though (and not so luckily for us), Samara’s power only grows with her death.

Using her crazy powers, she projects some disturbing images onto videotape, and now anyone who watches the videotape is driven insane, and will die seven days later. Samara has the power to climb through the television, out into the world, and scare people to death. By the horrible expressions on the people’s faces, it does not look like a painless death either. Just the sight of her creepy visage would probably scare me to death with her stringy wet hair, rotting pale skin, and jerky movements.

Can Samara be stopped? It’s unlikely. At the end of The Ring 2, after Rachel closes the lid of the well, we hope that Samara is now trapped inside, but for a demon child who never sleeps, I don’t think that she would give up so easily. I think that Sam and Dean Winchester should be called in to do some battle with her. Salt and burn the body perhaps??!! Sure enough, there are rumors that a third movie is in development, and will release sometime in 2011.

*An earlier incarnation of the Samara character can be found in the Ringu series, and is named Sadako Yamamura.